This is an essay on grammar and writing, with extended consideration of the value of Strunk & White as a guide. Although the essay defends Strunk & White against several of that volume’s strongest critics, it also illustrates that even the best writers — and E. B. White was terrific, as was Antonin Scalia — sometimes make mistakes. (At great, perhaps excessive, length, the essay dissects a problematic passage in White’s “Death of a Pig.”) We should learn from those mistakes, not accept them as inevitable.